“Mr. Zuckoff, I think you are looking for me,” she said.

He found them willing to open up their lives to him in the hopes that people might be more willing to accept Naia if they knew how the couple felt about their child.

“They have embodied the idea that we have to set the bar high for ourselves and our children,” Zuckoff said.

Zuckoff said he was originally unsure of whether he would be able to capture the experience of an interracial marriage in addition to their parental challenges. But, he said, he discovered their views on race provided a prism through which to look at entering the world with a disability.

“They understood that every time there was an interaction, the disability was there,” Zuckoff said.

His Globe series won Zuckoff the prestigious 2000 Distinguished Writing Award for non-deadline reporting from the American Society of Newspaper Editors.

He has also been honored by the National Down Syndrome Congress and the American Association on Mental Retardation.

A “Dateline” special on Greg and Tierney Fairchild will air in the next few weeks.

Yesterday’s audience of about 50 included parents of Down Syndrome children, educators and GSE students. Many asked questions following Zuckoff’s talk and slideshow.

Perhaps most memorable was 40-year old mother-to-be Mary Rutkowski. Five months pregnant, she said her recent experience discovering that her child is likely to be severely disabled made Zuckoff’s talk all the more poignant.